Chapter Thirteen: Sophia's Ultimatum

Elena

Neither of us said much after that photo. There wasn't anything to say that didn't sound like panic pretending to be a plan.

"We shouldn't be seen together again," Damian said, still staring at his phone. "Not until we know who's watching. I'll take a different way back."

"And if it's Marcus?"

"Then he already knows what he needs to know. There's nothing we can do standing on this street that we can't do apart." He looked up at me. For one second his face went soft, worried, before he pulled it back. "Go home. Text me when you're inside."

I drove back with my hands sore from gripping the wheel too hard. I kept checking the mirror at every light. Nothing there. That scared me more than something would have. An empty mirror just meant they were better at this than I was.

The house was quiet when I got in. Quiet had stopped meaning safe a long time ago.

I heard voices before I saw anyone. Low. Fast. Coming from the sitting room. Something in the sound made me stop in the hall instead of walking through. Marcus's voice, calm, the way it always was right before something broke. Sophia's, thinner than usual, the words tumbling out too quick, like she wanted to finish before her voice gave out.

I couldn't hear the words. Just the silence after, sharp and sudden, then footsteps crossing the room toward the door.

I moved fast, dropped my bag by the stairs like I'd only just walked in. Marcus appeared a second later, jacket still on, phone already in his hand.

"There you are." He kissed my cheek like nothing had just happened in the room behind him. "I have a call. Don't wait dinner."

"Everything alright?" I watched his face for anything at all.

"Fine," he said, too fast, and was gone out the front door. His car pulled away a moment later.

I found Sophia sitting very still on the sofa, hands folded in her lap, one wrist tucked behind the other in a way that made my stomach drop before I even understood why.

"Sophia."

She looked up. Her eyes were red, though she'd tried to fix it, too much color pressed into her cheeks.

"I'm fine," she said, before I even asked.

"You're not." I sat down close, our knees almost touching. "What did he say to you?"

She stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else. When she finally spoke her voice had gone small. Nothing like the woman who used to move through this house like she owned every room in it.

"He knows I've been different lately," she said. "He asked me straight out if I've been talking to you. Really talking. Not the kitchen kind."

My chest went tight. "What did you tell him?"

"I said no." Her breath shook on the way out. "He didn't believe me. I don't think he believes anyone now. He just watches and waits to see if the lie holds up." She looked at me, real fear on her face, not the kind people put on for show. "He said if he finds out I've picked a side, he'll make sure I lose everything. Not just the studio work. Everything. He said it so calm, Elena. Like he was talking about the weather."

I thought of the notebook, hidden somewhere new now. The small pharmacy box. A baby she hadn't asked for with a man who talked about losing everything like it was a line item.

"He can't take everything," I said, though I wasn't sure I believed it.

"He can take more than you think." Her hand drifted to her stomach, that small habit I'd seen before, and then she caught herself and pulled it back. "I don't know how much longer I can keep standing in the middle of this. Pretending I haven't already picked."

Something in me softened watching her. She was drowning in the same house I was, just in a different room. For the first time since I found that notebook, I let myself feel it plain. Not pity. Just recognition.

"I went to see someone today," I said. "A woman tied to my parents' accident. She told me something." I stopped, thinking about how much to say, then decided to just say it. "Someone else came asking the same questions last week. A woman. Scared. Used to work for a family in this city, she said. Something she saw lately made her start remembering things she'd buried a long time ago."

Sophia went very still.

Something moved behind her eyes. Her whole body went stiff, in a way that had nothing to do with Marcus or anything we'd just been talking about.

"What did she look like," Sophia asked, her voice careful now, nothing like it had been a moment before.

"I don't know. The widow didn't say much more than that. Scared. Careful with her words."

Sophia's hand went to her own throat without her seeming to notice. "I think I've seen her before," she said slowly, like she was testing each word before she let it out. "There was a woman who used to come to the house years ago. Before you and Marcus married. She never stayed long. Always looked like she wanted to be anywhere else."

"Who was she?"

Sophia opened her mouth to answer. Something in her face changed, fear stacking on top of fear, and she leaned in, her voice dropping to almost nothing.

"If it's who I'm thinking of," she said, "we're in more trouble than you know. She wasn't just staff, Elena. She was—"

The front door opened.

We both froze. I watched every trace of what she'd been about to say drop off her face, replaced by that same careful blank look she must have practiced for years before I ever learned to wear one myself.

Footsteps in the hall. Too soon for Marcus's call to be done. Too slow and deliberate to be anyone in a hurry.

Sophia's eyes met mine, wide and pleading, one last warning passing between us before the sitting room door began to open.